Satellite S55t-B5233 Shrink disk for dual boot windows 8 and other OS

Hi,
I have a Toshiba Satellite S55t-B5233 Pre-installed with Windows 8.1
I would like to maintain Windows 8 but to dual boot with Windows 7, Ubuntu and OpenSuse, so:
- When I try to Shrink disk C (943371 MB) it says that 'Size of available shrink space in MB = 469651 MB'. The free space in my disk is 885240 MB!
So I would like to know if there is a way to left about 200000 MB for Windows 8? so I could use the rest of space for shrinking for other OS...
- I would instal windows 7, ubuntu and OpenSuse in partitions D, E and F [Partitions that I pretend to create by shrinking C] ... a) does it will void my warrantee? b) does it will render my Windows 8 “Recovery Partition” useless?
thanks in advance...
Gari

Satellite S55t-B5233
I don't recommend you attempt multiple-booting in this new UEFI/GPT world, Gari. Things are more difficult now than they were in the BIOS/MBR world. Best to set up virtual machines using Hyper-V or another free VM to run other OSes.
In answer to your questions,..
a. Toshiba doesn't care what you do with the software. They won't even look at the computer until the drive has been restored to its original out-of-the-box contents.
b. After you mess around with the partition locations, I doubt the recovery partition would be accessible in the normal fashion if at all. Many create a recovery drive and delete the recovery partition first thing.

Similar Messages

Dual Booting Windows and Solaris

Hi
how do i dual boot windows and solaris
Do i install windows first and then solaris or do it the other way around..?
how do i make sure that Windows and Solaris appear in my boot options..?
Is their a guide on doing this...?
Thanks
Liam

Hey I did a quick google search for you. So I havent tried this method myself but it sounds reasonable.
The text below is from the following link:
http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix1/DualBoot.htm
"Solaris boot loader
Partition the drive to leave at least 2GB of space available for Solaris;
more drive space is desirable.
As with Linux, install Windows first then Solaris.
Do not use the Installation CD but boot and install
from Software CD 1.
If you accept the default partitioning scheme which
the installer provides you will soon run out of space in
your / and /usr partitions since only enough space is
allocated to install the system.
All extra space is allocated to /export/home.
A typical installation on a 4.5GB partition might look
something like this:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0d0s0 900M 536M 310M 64% /
/dev/dsk/c0d0s1 334M 109M 192M 36% /var
swap 671M 8.0k 671M 1% /var/run
swap 671M 8.0k 671M 1% /tmp
/dev/dsk/c0d0s5 845M 222M 565M 29% /opt
# (FAT32 partition):
/dev/dsk/c0d0p0:1 5.0G 3.3G 1.6G 66% /c
/dev/dsk/c0d0s7 1.1G 92M 954M 9% /export/home
/dev/dsk/c0d0s4 752M 225M 474M 33% /usr/local
The Solaris boot selector enables you to choose either
Solaris or Windows with Solaris as the default.
(I prefer grub or lilo!)
To mount FAT under Solaris:
# mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c0d0p0:c /dos (or �:1�?)
And the vfstab file:
/dev/dsk/c0d0p0:c - /dos pcfs - yes -
To create a GRUB boot floppy, follow these steps:
$ mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0
$ mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0
$ mkdir /mnt/fd0/boot /mnt/fd0/boot/grub
$ cp /boot/grub/stage[12] /boot/grub/grub.conf \
> /mnt/fd0/boot/grub
$ /sbin/grub --batch <
Hope this helps!
/Oscar

How to best partition the HDD for dual boot: Windows 8 & Linux

Hi,
I'm a newbie in Windows 8, linux, Partition....
I would like to use my new laptop with windows 8 pre-installed to the following:
Create a Dual Boot Windows 8 / Ubuntu
Create on my C drive (unique drive on my laptop):
*a partition for the system
*one for Windows 8
*one for Data and
*last one for Ubuntu OS
My aim is :
-to install VmWare on Windows 8 and run Checkpoint Splat with virtual machines to perform CCSA labs.
to install GNS3 on Ubuntu for CCNP labs but with GNS3 accessing files in the Data partition
I have a Toshiba Satellite with 750Gb and 8 Go RAM.
According to you what's the best size for my partitions?
Is there a better way to partition my C drive regarding my aim?
Best Regards
***I don't know if it's the right section, sorry for that. Feel free to move this thread in the appropriate section***

Hi,
Thank you all,
Isn't it too much 200G for Windows as i will on ly install VMWARE Workstation 9 for lab purposes and possibly a few softwares.
VMWARE installed on Windows will require 2 GB + 1 GB per host (i will use approximatively 15 hosts).
Checkpoint products will be installed on VMWARE that is installed in Windows :
- disk space needed for 3 Checkpoint gateways: 3*37 GB
- disk space needed for 2 Checkpoint gateways management servers: 2*10 GB
On Linux I'll install GNS3 with 10 GB disk space required and a few softwares.
I've got a Toshiba stellite computer with Windows 8 pre-installed.
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3210M CPU @2.5 Ghz
RAM: 8 Go
64 bits OS, processor x64
See below the screenshot
I've taken screenshot of my partition (below).
* Don't take into account the disk 1 (E) partition
Can u confirm that in Disk o, partitions with 450 Mo, 260 Mo and 9.48 Go are for recovery system?
I am planning to let the recovery partition as it is and divide the TI30985500A (C) partition (688 Gb) into:
- 200 Gb windows partition
-100 Gb Linux partition
-388 Gb data partition
What do you think about this partionning regarding the informations i've provided above?
Greets

Dual boot Windows and Linux?

I recently bought a T61, and will be taking a programming course. One prof I spoke with said they ask us to use Unix tools, so one option is to dual boot linux and Windows. I haven't decided yet whether I will keep Windows Ultimate, or go to XP for this. But I was wondering how easy/hard is it to make this work, and what kind of steps need to be taken? If you could point me towards any good tutorials/guides that would be appreciated too.
Also, I have never really used linux, so which version is best? I will be needing it for programming, but also still want to do the basics like web surfing, music, dvd's, burning discs, etc. I have an old copy of Ubuntu that I never used, but its probably about 4 years old. Is this still acceptable or will I need something newer?
Message Edited by amace on 05-29-2008 01:28 PM
T61 15.4" T9300 (2.5GHz 6MB L2) Windows 7 Professional x64 4GB Memory, NVidia Quadro NVS 140M

Hi,
If it's just a couple of programming courses that you are going to take I suggest you'd try out VMware player:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
You can get this software for free and since your system packs a lot of punch it will be able to run it smoothly without any hassle. I'm an engineering grad student and I have to do alot of programming. I've used VMware player before to do some software developement in Ubuntu when I didn't have enough HD to install dual boot but still couldn't do all my other stuff without XP.
VMware Ubuntu will need a bit of fiddling to get it work just right (USB devices, etc) but it shouldn't be harder than installing a dual boot (actually it is alot easier for my opinion). The only down side is that file sharing between VMware and Windows can be somewhat difficult. I used an external USB drive to share my files but you could always set up Samba to handle file sharing.
I hope this helps out with your decision.

Partitioning a disk for dual boot

My system disk failed last week. The media just stopped holding a proper magnetic charge so I ended up with loads of bad blocks.
The disk was 120 GB in size.
I replaced it with a 500 GB model. But I didn't need the extra space for the system disk so I partitioned it into 2 drives (Mac OS Extended). The first one I set to 185 GB and the second one I made 300 GB. The rest of the space was lost due to rounding.
I restored the 185 GB partition from my backup copy (Retrospect 5) and was quite satisfied with the results - Mac OS 9.2.2. I also was able to access the other (empty) partition successfully.
I booted the system into 9.2.2 from partition #1 and decided to install OS X on the larger partition. So I loaded up the Tiger Install disk #1. The install process started but when I was asked to select a target drive the empty second partition was not in the list of choices.
Why?
I want to have a dual boot capability on the single drive. How do I do that?
Gary

Not all G4s supported drives greater than 128 GB:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2544
http://lowendmac.com/2005/how-big-hard-drive-imac-emac-power-mac-powerbook-ibook /

[SOLVE] Dual Boot Windows and ArchLinux with Syslinux

Ok, i installed ArchLinux on my laptop with Windows XP (syslinux) and I cannot find get Windows to boot or mount it. I have tried to do what i can to do this but cannot. I Installed XP first like a should and something i think might be needed to know is after i created the partitions scheme (10Gb (boot partition), 50GB (XP), 80GB(was unallocated)). The installation disk formated both 2 partitions in NTFS but i installed XP on the second and Windows reported them as C and D drives. Windows being D. Thought that was bit werid thinking Windows installed the mbr on that partition. When I installed ArchLinux, it did have the boot flag set on 10GB (or C drive).
Since I installed ArchLinux, I have been unable to find a solution to mounting/booting to Windows. Installed NTFS-3G and that didn't work when i tried mount /dev/sda3 windows and i did created a folder named windows but got ...
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda3,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so.
Tried dmesg | tail and got
[ 76.524133] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled
[ 179.468499] ACPI: \_SB_.PCI0.LPC0.ACAD: ACPI_NOTIFY_DEVICE_CHECK event: unsupported
[ 705.472330] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 717.380879] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 726.447184] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 727.596128] ACPI: \_SB_.PCI0.LPC0.ACAD: ACPI_NOTIFY_BUS_CHECK event: unsupported
[ 732.616138] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 733.848832] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 834.062062] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 2131.449211] perf samples too long (2534 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50100
This is when i run sudo lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 149.1G 0 disk
|-sda1 8:1 0 9.8G 0 part /boot
|-sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
|-sda3 8:3 0 53.6G 0 part
`-sda5 8:5 0 85.7G 0 part /
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
My syslinux is
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/sda5 rw
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
LABEL windows
MENU LABEL Windows
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd0 3
NOTE: chain is in the same directory with syslinux
I really think Windows got corrupted but not sure. Thought about repairing the mbr on windows and booting to it then reinstall syslinux but really don't want too.
Thanks in advance
Last edited by jag-ster (2014-11-27 02:12:12)

Here is the partition table:
/dev/sda1 one HUGE linux /boot primary partition (assuming ext4)
/dev/sda2 "name" of the extended partition
/dev/sda3 primary Windows partition (assuming NTFS)
/dev/sda5 logical Linux root partition (assuming ext4)
/dev/sda1 to /dev/sda4 are either all primary, or three primary and one extended. After /dev/sda4 all partitions are logical. If you're still wondering why is there no /dev/sda4, it's because you have 2 primary and one extended, so /dev/sda4 is reserved for another primary partition.
Windows problem:
The /dev/sda1 which Windows named C: is Windows equivalent of linux /boot. When you told linux to place its /boot on /dev/sda1 it formated boot files of Windows. Now you have Windows OS with no kernel. In other words there is no way to boot Windows if you don't reinstall it. Actually there is a way, but you would than screw up Arch.
Mounting problem:
You can never mount extended partition, only logical (an extended partition is made of logical partitions). You want to do:
sudo mount /dev/sda3 -t NTFS-3g -o rw,uid=YourUserName /path/where/you/want/this/partition/mounted
EDIT:
Try it this way:
- Backup all your data
- Delete every partition
- Start Windows installation
- Make only one partition (c:/ for Windows)
- Let Windows make another partition
- Make one more so you could have a data partition, which does not need to be formated to reinstall Windows
- Start Arch installation
- Get to partitioning
=Partitioning=
- /dev/sda4 extended (take the rest of the drive)
- /dev/sda5 logical /boot 512MiB
- /dev/sda6 logical / 20GiB
- /dev/sda7 logical /home (the rest)
Making a separate /home partition will come in handy when reinstalling Arch (any linux distribution), or switching between distros, because it is the equivalent of D:/ in Windows. Also consider LVM.
Last edited by bstaletic (2014-02-28 23:25:33)

Dual Booting Windows and Arch (SOLVED!)

Hello all, I'm having trouble getting a windows partition activated again. (Windows was on here for many years, then I installed arch on a separate partition.)
Here is the layout of fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7833 62918541 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 7834 12039 33784695 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 12040 12161 979965 82 Linux swap / Solaris
sda1 is the windows partition, and sda2 is the arch partition. The linux partition SHOULD be primary bootable (have the * next to it),but all my attempts to do this have failed. (I've used "testdisk" to change the flags, but for some reason it keeps reverting back to setting sda 1 as primary bootable after a reboot or 2).
This is the pertinent section of /boot/grub/menu.lst:
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/f3be3baa-3b62-460c-8801-64b0b1cca$
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/f3be3baa-3b62-460c-8801-64b0b1cca$
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
I have a . . . modified . . . copy of XP Professional, which comes with a recovery console to reinstall the MBR if it's necessary.
From what I've researched, I somehow need to reinstall grub to the second partition, make the second partition primary bootable, then rewrite the MBR on the first partition, and correct any command errors in menu.lst, but I haven't really figure out a way to do it.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Last edited by mongoose088 (2008-12-20 21:48:18)

I read up on some documentation of installing GRUB to the MBR.
So far, I went into ArchLive (from the cd) and did the following
grub> root (hd0,1)
grub> setup (hd0)
The installation reports success with no errors, but the problem persists. Arch linux will boot fine, but when I select XP it flashes my configuration, like so:
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
then kicks me back to the OS select GRUB screen. Did I install it to the wrong place?
EDIT:
I decided to issue this command:
grub> setup(hd0,1)
It reported some errors, then arch couldn't mount the ntfs partition because of possible MFT cluster errors.
Using testdisk, I repaired the boot sector and MFT clusters, then using ArchLive reinstalled grub with grub>(hd0)
Arch and Arch Fallback will boot correctly, but now the windows side shows an error:
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Loading stage2Read Error (or something to this extent)
I wonder if this error brings me closer or farther to a solution?
Thanks for the replies so far!
Last edited by mongoose088 (2008-12-20 05:41:43)

Dual-Booting Windows and Android on Yoga Tablet 2 13?

So I am a big fan of the lenovo yoga tablet so I started looking into the new versions of the tablet and I came upon something curious. both the yoga tablet 2 pro and the yoga tablet 2 13 (windows) have the same processor (a 64-bit processor) as well as very similar technical specs(the main difference being the windows edition has 4GB of ram instead of 2GB and a larger battery no doubt due to the removal of the integrted pico projector). as well Lenovo has the source code for the android build in the pro available on the website.
So my question is if both are running off the same 64-bit processor is there anything stopping someone from compiling the yoga 2 pro source code and installing the yoga 2 pro android OS onto the Windows version of the tablet (dual-booting both) aside from secure boot needing to be disabled?
after scouring the internet and asking a few lenovo representatives I have found absolutely no information on this (the lenovo reps I spoke to couldn't even confirm the specs of the processors but I found that data from the intel ark database) and it is something I really would like to do if possible (especially with android 5.0 having x86 support integrated in the vanila build)
So anyone have any information on anyone trying this or something similar being attempted?

so, lenovo putted a really bad bios on thoses tablets.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-based-Tablets/Alternatives-OSes-and-CMS-under-Yoga-1051/td-p/190...
To make it short, the uefi bios used on yoga tablets support only x86 so, the x86-64 instruction set can't be used, on windows. Without CSM (compatibility support module) you can't even try to boot some oses. For linux you need to mod it, i'll try later but, i can't build a new bios and lenovo is not present on this board

Stream 7, dual boot, windows and android

Given that the HP Stream 7 can be equipped with lots of storage, why not dual boot it with Window and Andoid so I can have the best of both worlds
can this tablet be configured to do that?

Before going to a lot of trouble, I'd get a boot disk on USB with Android X86 on it. Then boot off the USB.
I'd also suggest using 4.22 or 4.4, not 5.0. "Everyone" is still working on 5.0.x.
I've not had much luck on a few devices and Android x86 - hence my suggestion. I have NOT tried it on the Stream 7

Product recovery for dual boot T60

I've got a T60 that dual boots windows and Ubuntu. My goal is to reinstall windows on the windows partition while leaving the ubuntu partitions alone. However, the recovery utility appears to only allow for a fully harddrive wipe and reinstallation. Is there a way to reduce the scope of the wipe so that it only wipes and reinstalls on my windows partition? I have no data on the windows side that I need to save, but am trying to avoid having to reinstall Ubuntu as well.
thanks

I too have a similar setup. I'd simply use a windows setup disc to do the install. It's much faster and the product recovery discs install 5year old OS/software/drivers, all of which will need updating anyway.
ThinkPad W-510 i7-820QM(1.73-3.06GHz) Quad Core... ThinkPad T500, T9900, 8gb SSD...FrankNpad T-60p/61p (X9000 2.8ghz) 8gb SSD ips FlexView...ThinkPad T-61p (T9300 2.5ghz) 8gb ram...Thinkpad X-61 Tablet 4gb ram...ThinkPad A-31 (1.9ghz P4 1.5gb ram)

Advice on dual-booting Windows 7 with UEFI motherboard

I'm going to build a desktop PC tomorrow, having finally purchased all the parts for it. I'll be installing Arch as my main OS, and Windows for gaming. However I'm not really versed in UEFI and its uses, advantages/disadvantages; since my laptop just uses BIOS.
My plan is to have 3 drives: 32GB SSD for the / partition, 1TB HDD for /home, and 500GB for Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.
Being unused to UEFI I was thinking about trying to just run everything in BIOS/Legacy mode, but that doesn't seem very sensible to me, especially since I have the hardware so I might as well use it.
So, reading the wiki and forums have led me to conclude that having a 1GB EFI System Partition on the SSD should be sufficient, and use gummiboot for my bootloader.
Other reading about setting up dual boots suggests to me that installing Windows 7 on its own HDD with MBR partitioning and Arch on a separate (set of) drive(s) with GPT partitioning will be sufficient. The reason being that if the BIOS is set up to boot sda, which has GRUB as its bootloader, using GRUB I can choose to boot into Windows despite it being on a separate hard drive.
My questions are (and it occurs to me that I am in the most part just looking to have my ideas confirmed):
1. Have I gotten this all completely wrong?
2. If I'm correct, can the above system of using GRUB on one drive to boot up an OS on another drive be applied to UEFI?
3. Has anybody tried/succeeded/failed to dual-boot in this fashion before me, and if so what did they do?
Thanks one and all! Hopefully I've made myself clear enough here

billodwyer wrote:Being unused to UEFI I was thinking about trying to just run everything in BIOS/Legacy mode, but that doesn't seem very sensible to me, especially since I have the hardware so I might as well use it.
Using BIOS/CSM/legacy mode can work fine; however, it will probably slow down the boot process by a few seconds, and it will close off some possible future (and even current) advantages, as EFI support in Linux is improved.
So, reading the wiki and forums have led me to conclude that having a 1GB EFI System Partition on the SSD should be sufficient, and use gummiboot for my bootloader.
A 1GB ESP is more than sufficient. In terms of space requirements, 100-500MB is enough, depending on how you use the ESP; but various bugs and default settings make me recommend 550MiB as a good size. Bigger is OK, but wastes some disk space.
A bigger issue is that the ESP won't really benefit much from being on your SSD, since it's read once at boot time. The biggest advantage to putting the ESP on the SSD in your setup is that if you use gummiboot, you'll also have to put the Linux kernel and initrd file on the ESP, so having them on an SSD will speed up the boot process by about 1-5 seconds. Overall, I'd probably put the ESP on one of the spinning disks.
One more comment: gummiboot can launch boot loaders from its own partition but not from other partitions. This can work fine if you plan things carefully, but with three disks and two OSes, you must be absolutely positive that Windows uses the ESP on which gummiboot is installed. I'm not an expert on Windows installation, so I can't offer any specific pointers or caveats on this. If you need something with more flexibility, both rEFInd and GRUB can redirect the boot process to other partitions or physical disks. rEFInd can also redirect from an EFI-mode boot to a BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode boot. (See below.) Overall, rEFInd's flexibility on this score is a plus compared to gummiboot; but gummiboot is covered in the Arch wiki's beginner's guide, which is a plus. You'll have to pick which advantage you prefer. (Note that I'm rEFInd's maintainer, so I'm not unbiased.)
Other reading about setting up dual boots suggests to me that installing Windows 7 on its own HDD with MBR partitioning and Arch on a separate (set of) drive(s) with GPT partitioning will be sufficient. The reason being that if the BIOS is set up to boot sda, which has GRUB as its bootloader, using GRUB I can choose to boot into Windows despite it being on a separate hard drive.
This is an unworkable idea, at least as stated and if you want to do an EFI-mode boot. Windows ties the partition table type to the boot mode: Windows boots from MBR disks only in BIOS mode, and from GPT disks only in EFI mode. Thus, using MBR for the Windows disk will require a BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode installation of Windows. Furthermore, neither gummiboot nor GRUB can redirect from EFI mode to BIOS mode (or vice-versa), so if you do it this way, you'll be forcing yourself to boot Linux in BIOS mode, to switch between BIOS-mode and EFI-mode boots at the firmware level (which isn't always easily controlled), or to use rEFInd to redirect from an EFI-mode boot to a BIOS-mode Windows boot.
Overall, you're best off either using GPT for all your disks and booting all your OSes in EFI mode or using MBR for Windows (and perhaps all your disks) and using BIOS-mode booting for all your OSes.
Under EFI, the boot process is controlled by settings in the NVRAM, which you can adjust with "efibootmgr" in Linux, "bcfg" in an EFI shell, or "bcdedit" in Windows. (The Arch wiki covers the basics at least efibootmgr and bcfg.) In a typical dual-boot setup, you tell the computer to launch your preferred boot manager (EFI-mode GRUB, rEFInd, or gummiboot, most commonly), which then controls the boot process. You set up boot loaders for all your OSes on one or more ESPs. (Note: A boot manager lets you choose which boot loader to run, and a boot loader loads the kernel into memory. GRUB is both a boot manager and a boot loader. rEFInd and gummiboot are both boot managers. The EFI stub loader, ELILO, and the EFI version of SYSLINUX are all boot loaders but not boot managers. Most EFIs include their own boot manager, but it's usually primitive and awkward to use. It's also not standardized, so my computer's built-in boot manager is likely to be different from yours. Thus, I recommend against relying on the built-in boot manager for anything but launching your preferred boot manager.) Thus, the lowest-common-denominator type of setup is to put your preferred boot manager, the Windows boot loader, and a Linux boot loader (which could mean your Linux kernel) on a single ESP. If you want to use multiple ESPs or otherwise split things up, you cannot use gummiboot as the boot manager, since it can't redirect the boot process from one partition to another. (Many EFIs can do this with their own built-in boot managers, but this isn't guaranteed, and it's usually more awkward than using rEFInd or GRUB.)
I know this can be a lot to absorb. The official rules aren't really all that complex, but different EFIs interpret the rules differently, and the different capabilities of the various boot managers and boot loaders creates a lot of subtle implications for how you set everything up.
1. Have I gotten this all completely wrong?
Significant parts of it, I'm afraid; see above. You're working under BIOS assumptions, which don't apply to EFI.
2. If I'm correct, can the above system of using GRUB on one drive to boot up an OS on another drive be applied to UEFI?
GRUB can do this, but gummiboot can't. You set one of those (or something else, like rEFInd) as your primary boot manager. Using both GRUB and gummiboot adds unnecessary complexity, IMHO. OTOH, setting up multiple boot managers or boot loaders is possible, and can give you a fallback in case one fails. For instance, there's a known bug that affects 3.7 and later kernels, mostly on Lenovo computers, that causes the EFI stub loader to fail sometimes. Thus, if you use rEFInd, gummiboot, or the EFI's own boot manager to launch the kernel via the EFI stub loader, having GRUB, ELILO, or SYSLINUX set up as a fallback can provide helpful insurance in case a kernel upgrade causes your normal boot process to fail.
3. Has anybody tried/succeeded/failed to dual-boot in this fashion before me, and if so what did they do?
Many people dual-boot Windows and Linux under EFI. There are a huge number of possible solutions. My own Windows/Linux dual-boot system uses:
rEFInd
rEFInd's EFI filesystem drivers
Linux kernels on Linux-native /boot partitions (two partitions, one for each of the two distributions installed on that computer)
The Windows boot loader on the ESP
This works well for me, but it wouldn't work with gummiboot instead of rEFInd, since gummiboot can't redirect the boot process to another partition. (gummiboot also can't automatically load filesystem drivers.) Arch Linux users who use gummiboot often mount the ESP at /boot, which enables gummiboot to easily launch the Linux kernel. Doing this with multiple Linux distributions would be awkward, though, since you'd end up with two distributions' kernels in the same directory.

[Success] Dual Booting Arch and Windows 7 [Advice / Confirmation]

So I have been trying to get Starcraft II to work with wine and no luck.
I have decided to install windows back on my computer, besides it might come in handy since I'm heading back to school soon.
Anyways I have tried dual booting arch and windows in the past, and my results have never been stable.
Today I will try using the program gparted.
Let me give you my thoughts on how I plan to go through this and please give me some advice so I don't loose everything I have worked for on my linux box
1.Currently I have two hard drives, one for all my main programs and one for my media files (mounting usb, dvd, etc, and it actually has no files in it xD).
I plan to use gparted to re-size my second harddrive (media drive), create an extended partition, and a logical ntfs partition within it.
2.I pop in my windows cd that I recieved with my laptop and install it on the space I have partitioned for windows.
3. If my grub gets wiped out my windows (which I hope it doesn't not sure how the MBR stuff works) I insert a Ubuntu live cd and do
sudo grub
> root (hd0,0)
> setup (hd0)
> exit
4.Configure grub to boot windows 7.
5.Be happy with no headache.
SO....
If someone with past experience with dual booting windows and arch could please give me some advice, as I do not want to lose all my data, start over, and have another headache.
I know I must learn to backup arch, which I will before september.
But if anyone has any protips, or sees a flaw in my plan please point it out!!!
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and even more if advice has been given to boost my confidence!
For now I will wait
Thank you fellow archies.
Last edited by Jabrick (2011-07-03 01:29:36)

satanselbow wrote:
1) Windows must be installed to a primary partition - attempting to install it to an logical partition will result in an epic fail
2) Physically disconnect the harddrive you do not want windows on as windows typically installs the bootloader on the 1st hardisk (ie /sda) regardless of installation drive (ie /sdb)
3 / 4) Complete the windows installation then reattached your Arch drive and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (as root) pointing the W7 entry to (hd1,0) - no need to reinstall grub
5) Hey it's windows - anything could happen
If you create an NTFS partition right at the beginning of the the drive before you start the W7 install you can prevent it greedily using up 2 of you 4 primary partitions - I would also completely update you new W7 installation past SP1 before reattaching the other drive to further prevent W7 going mental
satanselbow thank you so much!
Everything works great I had no stumbles, and I hope no problems in the future!!
I will post exactly what I did in case someone has the same issue.
1. Partition you're secondary harddrive as primary ntfs with gparted
2. Reboot, and if you get a file system check error, check you're udev rules. (For my case in particular I had to change the udev rules I got for auto mounting usb, ext harddrive, etc.
3.Power off your computer and physically remove the harddrive that contains all your linux goodies
4. Plug in your windows cd and install in the partition you created
5. Update your windows OS
6. Plug in Ubuntu live CD and reboot
7. Use commands to get grub to overwrite the windows boot loader (In my case I put grub everyone hd0,0 hd0,1 just to be sure, but you might want to do things cleaner)
8. Reboot and see if grub loads up
9. Use Ubuntu live CD again and launch Gparted, select the boot to your extra linux space (if you had one, not sure if this is needed)
10. Plug in your linux harddrive and reconfigure /boot/grub/menu.lst and your good to go
Once again shout outs to satanselbow!!! For without him I might've failed brutally!
Cheers!

Dual Boot Vista and Arch

Hey, I am attempting to set up my laptop to dual boot Windows Vista and Arch Linux.
The problem I'm having is after installing Arch my laptop still boots windows w/o going to the grub
I started with having Windows Vista installed on the laptop, and then shrank down the partition with vista by 30 gigs for Arch.
I was following the Arch setup guide in the wiki along with the Dual Boot Windows and Arch guide in the wiki [wiki]Windows_and_Arch_Dual_Boot[/wiki].
My partitioning Scheme is:
/dev/sda1 1.46 gb (some sort of toshiba recovery partition I believe)
/dev/sda2 117.8 gb (Vista Partition)
/dev/sda3 1 gb (Swap partition)
/dev/sda4 29 gb /root partition
According to the Dual Boot wiki article, I should install the grub to /boot, which in my case is in /root which I did.
The thing that confuses me about this is if I install the grub to /boot how do I get the grub to boot before the windows MBR?
Thanks in advanced

Mclarenf1905 wrote:
Hey, I am attempting to set up my laptop to dual boot Windows Vista and Arch Linux.
The problem I'm having is after installing Arch my laptop still boots windows w/o going to the grub
I started with having Windows Vista installed on the laptop, and then shrank down the partition with vista by 30 gigs for Arch.
I was following the Arch setup guide in the wiki along with the Dual Boot Windows and Arch guide in the wiki [wiki]Windows_and_Arch_Dual_Boot[/wiki].
My partitioning Scheme is:
/dev/sda1 1.46 gb (some sort of toshiba recovery partition I believe)
/dev/sda2 117.8 gb (Vista Partition)
/dev/sda3 1 gb (Swap partition)
/dev/sda4 29 gb /root partition
According to the Dual Boot wiki article, I should install the grub to /boot, which in my case is in /root which I did.
The thing that confuses me about this is if I install the grub to /boot how do I get the grub to boot before the windows MBR?
Thanks in advanced
It still works fine. It doesn't matter if its not in root directory. Others linux OSes have their bootloaders in the same directory and it manages to boot just fine.

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I've tried to install Wndows 7 on my macbook air for dual boot but got the kernal error on boot.
I loaded from the CD again and it sucessfully installed win 7 but when I start the macbook air up it only appears to have windows installed?
How can I get my OSX back?

For some odd reason when you use bootcamp to install the second OS bootcamp is defaulted as the primary OS you will need to hold option key to select the apple OS then in the sys preference under startup disk select apple as primary.

How do I add another operating system for Dual boot in Windows 8.1 boot configuration?

Hello,
I am trying to create a dual-boot Windows 8.1 Pro system to allow both 32bit and 64 bit Windows 8.1 versions. I currently have Windows 8.1 32bit installed. Appreciate some background on how to add 64bit Windows 8.1.
Thanks, in advance.

The easiest way is to do this (this assumes some technical knowledge as well as access to the currently installed operating system and the 64bit install files)
1: launch diskpart from run or cmd
2: select the current OS disk using "select disk 0"
3: select the current OS volume using "select partition x" where x is the number of partition (you can use "list partition" to see all current partitions)
4: enter "shrink minimum=xxxxx" where xxxxx is the size in megabytes you want to new OS to have
5: Enter "create partition primary"
6: Enter "format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows x64""
7: Enter "assign letter y"
8: select your current system partition using "select partition x" where x is the number of partition. If you have a UEFI install on a GPT disk, this partition will be formatted in fat32. Otherwise, it will be a 100mb NTFS partition
9: Enter "assign letter s"
10: exit diskpart, and open up an administrator cmd prompt
11: Enter "dism /get-imageinfo /imagefile:e:\sources\install.wim" where e: is the drive letter that you have your .iso mounted in. If you have the iso extracted, you can just point to the current extracted area then \sources.install.wim. This will
show you a list of indexes that the .wim file supports. A standard retail version of the .iso will have Windows 8 Pro be index 1. If it is not, just change the index number in the next command.
12: Enter "dism /apply-image /imagefile:e:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /applydir:y:"
13: Enter "bcdboot y:\windows /s s: /f UEFI" (if you are using a MBR disk and not UEFI with a GPT disk, enter /f BIOS instead)
14: Reboot, select the x64 partition in the menu that comes up, and you are good to go!
You can also just create a new partition using disk manager then boot to the x64 disk and install it to the new partition, but that runs the risk of accidentally installing over something that shouldn't be if you select the wrong disk.

Satellite S55t-B5233 Shrink disk for dual boot windows 8 and other OS

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